In 1994, six years before Ang Lee’sCrouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (followed by Yimou Zhang’sHero) introduced contemporary Wuxia films to enthusiastic Western audiences, Wong Kar-wai’s art house martial-arts epic Ashes of Time, featuring Brigitte Lin, Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung, and the late Leslie Cheung, was met with mixed reviews and low box office receipts, in part due to its fragmented plot structure. Though it never reached the cult status of Wong’s Chungking Express – released in the same year – Ashes has gone on to be considered one of his most underappreciated works. Citing the sense that there were multiple unauthorized versions of the film floating around in low grade home releases, he opted to reedit and release an updated cut of the film, which premiered at Cannes earlier this year to more appreciative reviews. Said The New York Time’s Manohla Dargis, “This newly re-edited and digitally tweaked iteration runs about 10 minutes shorter than the original, and rather more coherently … Drenched in shocking color — the desert shifts from egg-yolk yellow to burnt orange under a cerulean sky — the film is Mr. Wong’s most abstract endeavor, a bold excursion into the realm of pure cinema. It also now seems like one of his most important.” Scheduled release: October 10, 2008.